“I must be,” she said quietly. “I mean, my eye . . .”
“What about your flippin’ eye?” demanded Martin, a slight tone of annoyance creeping into his voice.
Claire inhaled deeply at his tone, as if trying to suppress a fresh bout of tears. She looked up again at the window. “It means I’m a bit soft, I suppose . . .” she whispered, her words trailing off as she tried to keep the emotion in.
What Martin did next would stay in her memory forever. The awkward youth stood up from where he had been sitting at the table and walked around to face her where she stood in her dusty apron, flour up to her wrists. He still had a look of confusion on his face, but it softened slightly into something more defined as he stopped before her, reached his hand up slowly, and unexpectedly brushed his thumb across the eyelid of her left eye.
Claire had flinched, instinct reminding her that no one raised a hand without pain following. Not this time, however. Martin was gentle as a feather. She felt her eyes close under his fingers. There was no sensation of hurt. no gouging, like her brother had done once in a fit of rage, trying to push the eye back into her head. “Yi’d be better off wi’ a hole in yer hid than tha’ thing,” she remembered him say, his voice thick with whisky. She shuddered at the memory, and regretted it because it made Martin pull his hand away. He took a step back, embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said in a voice that was uncharacteristically low for him. “Dunno what I was thinking. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I mean, does it hurt when you touch it?”
Claire stared at him, suddenly conscious of the short distance between them, their breathing shallow in the silence of the kitchen. The shaft of light from the window shone down between them now and she saw dust motes sparkle in the light across Martin’s chest.
“No,” she whispered. “It just reminded me . . .”
“Only when I look at your eyes,” continued Martin, finding it difficult to look directly into them, “I just see now that they’re a really nice colour. Green and that. I mean, at first I used to notice the one that looks the wrong way . . . I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but you know what I mean . . .”
Claire smiled as she watched Martin struggle with the words.
“And you’re not stupid!” he said fiercely.
Claire flinched again, this time at the sincerity that she saw in the eyes that looked back at her.
“You’re learning all that stuff from Mrs T all the time,” he said, “like baking them cakes and stuff, and you know all about the things in the garden – the herbs and all that. I’ve been here a year and I don’t know the difference between ’em and a blade of grass!”
Claire smiled again, but melancholy tugged at the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t used to people speaking to her like this. She wasn’t sure it had ever happened.
Martin took a deep breath and continued. “And I think you’re flipping marvellous actually. And you must know I like you ’cos I hang round here all the time when I can and you make lovely lemonade and things are great since you came and I’m really glad you never went to Glasgow and that you stayed ’cos I think I’d really miss you if you left.”
Claire frowned. His face was gone completely red, even to the tips of his ears.
“And they’re nice here and all, don’t get me wrong. I mean I love Mrs T to bits but . . . well, she’s Mrs T, innit, and there’d be Mr T to reckon with and I don’t even fancy her . . .”
Claire found it harder to understand his accent as he spoke faster and faster, his eyes darting from his hands up to her face and away again, as if ashamed or nervous to look at her.
“What are you on about, Martin?” she asked softly. “Please slow down, I can’t understand you.”
“Can I kiss you?” he asked suddenly. Blurting the words out. Immediately he regretted it and his hands flew to his mouth as if to try to stuff them back in.
“I’m so sorry, Drum, I shouldn’t have asked you that. That was cheeky.”
Claire gasped, feeling her stomach leap at his words, as if an electric current went through her body. She felt a sudden dart of nerves hit her and her legs and hands trembled. She stared at Martin, trying to take in what he had just asked, while he burbled in his odd accent, bright red with embarrassment. She looked at his face, into his now-troubled eyes, at his full lips, his slightly sallow skin, the small brown mole on the line of his jaw that she had never noticed before.
“Not now, Martin,” she said suddenly.
Martin stopped talking, bringing his gaze up to meet hers shyly.
“I’d . . . rather you didn’t just now,” she continued. “But maybe . . .” she let the words trail away. She wasn’t sure what she meant, wasn’t sure what she wanted Martin to think she meant. She needed to think.
It was only a matter of a week or two before the kiss finally came at the back door in the late afternoon sunshine with the sweet smell of grass in the air and dusk beginning to fall. It was the first of many kisses, snatched here and there, fleeting exchanges on the stairs or in the kitchen garden. Giggling, shy, joyous kisses when they found a second to be alone together. And as the summer stretched on, seeming endless, the shadow of Uncle Jack didn’t seem so dark, and the threat of Claire being found by her family diminished. Because in the days and weeks running up to Martin Pine’s eighteenth birthday, he realised, as did Claire Drummond, that he was in love. For what would be the first and only time in his life.
CHAPTER 25
November 30th
“Bloody stupid bastard!” said Will, slamming the palm of his hand lightly against the steering wheel of the Volvo. “Stupid arrogant shit, coming up here and thinking he can just swan in and take over!”
Beside him, Gabriel covered his ears. “William!” he barked. “Language, please. You’re offending even me. And it’s offence enough that we’re driving to the party in this heap of tin when you have a perfectly decent car sitting back in Edinburgh!”
Will ignored him and continued to focus on the road ahead. They were on the last lap of their journey to the castle and Gabriel was directing proceedings with the occasional twitch of a finger in the appropriate direction. Will was finding it hard to focus on the narrow, unknown road and the subtle gestures.
“Will you just tell me where to go,” he sighed, frustrated. “You’re not at a bloody auction!”
Gabriel eyed him sideways. “I mean, my godfather is a very wealthy man, and what’s he going to think of me turning up in this!” He swept an arm around him, looking disdainfully over his shoulder at the back seat which was covered with discarded jackets, empty water bottles, chocolate wrappers and bits of paper and pens. Further behind, the hatchback boot was filled with Will’s equipment, packed carefully into neat cases. The whole car had a faint smell of coffee and Gabriel’s eye was drawn to the source, an empty cardboard cup that rolled in and out from underneath the driver’s seat.
“You know the equipment doesn’t fit in the Lexus,” growled Will suddenly.
Gabriel jumped a little. He hadn’t expected a response yet – normally it took at least ten minutes’ more badgering to provoke an answer to his complaints.
“So let’s run through all this again,” said Will. “Just so I’m clear before we get there – Christopher Calvert is your godfather, but he was also Laurence’s, am I right?”
Gabriel sighed. “I really wish you’d listen for the first time when you’re told stuff,” he said petulantly and took a deep breath to begin again. “My understanding is that my mum used to work for Christopher and made him Laurence’s godfather. When Laurence died, Christopher was distraught – he loved him to bits apparently – so, when I was manufactured – hastily, to replace him – they gave the stewardship of me to Calvert as well. Sort of like getting a new puppy when the old one goes to a farm in the countryside.”
“Gabriel!” Will exclaimed. “That was uncalled for!”
Gabriel swung his head sharply toward the driver’s seat. “So was the several hours of moani
ng about Desperate Dan that I’ve had to listen to all the way up here! But did I say a word? No, not I!”
“All right,” conceded Will, interrupting him sharply. “I know I’ve been banging on about it. Sorry.”
“Accepted!” barked Gabriel. “Now take the next left.”
Will did as he was instructed before picking up the conversation again. “And you don’t know anything more than that?”
Gabriel cast an eye out the passenger window to take in the scenery through which they drove – bleak and beautiful in the mid-morning sunshine. He shrugged. “Truth be told, I’ve found out more about this place from Sue’s clippings over the past few days than I knew in my whole life. Jack Ball, for instance, is someone I know nothing about. No one ever spoke to me about any of this stuff – not even Laurence. By the time I started coming here for my annual summer penance, it was as if time beforehand had been obliterated. Next right.”
Will turned sharply, sighing again at the lateness of the instruction. Once around the corner, he glanced at Gabriel, his brow furrowed.
“Wasn’t that a bit odd?” he asked. “No one talked about any of it, ever? And you’re at least, what, fifty now?” He smirked and Gabriel sniffed loudly, fixing his attention out of the window.
“I’ll choose to ignore that comment,” he replied drily. “Now feast your eyes on this . . .”
He pointed out the windscreen just as they took another bend in the road and Will gasped, as through the bare trees on his left he caught his first glimpse of the castle about which he had heard so much. He could see it in the distance, smaller than he’d expected, but complicated – turrets and towers, ancient dark stone set amongst trees. For an instant he’d catch it, a fairytale structure one minute, then disappearing into the trees again before emerging to show itself off from another angle – a stately gothic home.
Will tried to keep an eye on the road but kept finding himself distracted by the castle looming like a dark shadow on his right-hand side. Gabriel barked more instructions, and Will did as he was told. It wasn’t long before they turned in through two high gateposts, once magnificent, but now missing a brick here and there and struggling a little with a growth of ivy.
“Here we are,” observed Gabriel.
Will lowered his speed, taking in the long driveway spread out before them, twisting and curling out of sight under the overhanging bare branches of oaks twisted together over time. The castle had all but vanished from view once they had taken the turn, hidden behind tall rhododendron bushes.
Gabriel waved at the screen of bushes. “All the better to overwhelm you with when you do actually get there,” he informed Will.
“This is a proper stately home job, Gabriel!” remarked Will.
“Why the surprise?” replied Gabriel. “I told you – it’s the real deal. Built in the 1860’s for some minor royal or other, architecture loosely modelled on Glamis Castle. We’ll get Martha to talk to Godfather tomorrow – he knows all about it and she has the stamina for all that historical stuff.” He waved his hands dismissively as they drove under a low bridge, still with no sign of the main building in sight.
Will rolled his eyes. “It would do you well to brush up a bit on your history,” he observed. “What with all the talking to people from the past that you do.”
“Not any more,” came the rapid-fire response. “I am currently not a medium, my dear boy. I am simply, shall we say, a mediocre. You can park in there,”
Will turned the wheel sharply left, steering through a gap in the high wall on their left and found himself in a courtyard, edged with ramshackle, disused sheds on three sides. There were a couple of other cars already parked there – a Mercedes and a BMW.
Gabriel tutted. “They’ll all know I’ve arrived in this,” he muttered, almost under his breath.
Will gasped. “Well, maybe if you bothered to drive every now and again you might see fit to spend some of your hard-earned cash on something that doesn’t embarrass you!”
Will killed the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition, stepping from the car onto the rough ground underneath and gasping slightly as a blast of freezing cold air hit him full in the face. Despite the brightness of the winter sun, it was bitterly cold. A few degrees lower than Edinburgh and heaven knew it had been cold enough there when they’d left. Will slammed the driver’s door shut and opened the back, reaching in for his coat which was slung across the seat.
Wordlessly, Gabriel stepped from the car himself and immediately set off, trudging away over the gravel surface of the makeshift car park, toward a gap in the wall opposite. Will watched him over the roof as he went.
“Here, aren’t you going to carry something or am I your Sherpa now as well?” he barked. Gabriel barely turned and made yet another of his dismissive hand gestures. “Someone will come and get all that for us!” he shouted over his shoulder and marched on without a second glance.
Will couldn’t help but smile. Being friends with Gabriel was sometimes like being a servant to a particularly petulant royal, but he was nothing if not entertaining. Will slung his overcoat on hastily and slammed the car door shut before taking off after his friend at a jog.
Dubhglas Castle didn’t so much welcome Gabriel through its double doors, as seem to consume him. At one moment he was striding ahead of Will along a gravel pathway which cut through a well-tended lawn leading toward the house, the next he skipped up the castle steps and disappeared. A pair of thick, fortress-like external doors were pulled open and secured to the front of the building with hooks, revealing a small entrance porch at the top of the steps and then a pair of flimsier doors within – white-painted wood frames with glass panels. Gabriel’s disappearance into the mouth of the castle gave Will a moment to stop and take it in full on. It was tall but compact – a mini-castle, more or less, with a fairytale round tower winding its way up to a pointed roof to the right-hand side of the main body of the structure – a functional square of a building which was flanked on the other side by a square tower topped with turrets. The overall effect was of something cobbled together out of different buildings from varying eras that didn’t quite fit. Will turned and scanned the landscape. There was nothing for miles – just the heather and bare trees beyond the castle grounds. He stared at the bleak beauty for a while, lost in how desolate yet extraordinarily beautiful it all was.
Feeling the cold seep in through his feet, he shoved his hands firmly into his pockets and with a final glance upwards at the ancient stones of the building’s façade, Will, too strode the remainder of the way to the entrance, climbed the steps and turned the old-fashioned brass knob of the internal door. On entering the hallway, the faint hint of must and old cooking hit him. There was no sign of Gabriel.
Will scanned his surroundings – it was impressive for a country home, but not the great hall of a castle that he had been expecting. To his left, a carved wooden staircase wound its way upwards to a mezzanine area on the first floor. Dark oil paintings hung on the wall directly in front of him – Highland landscapes, hunting scenes, along with an obligatory stag’s head, all underneath the canopy of the mezzanine. Before him but slightly to the left and through an archway, the hall extended down a dark passageway at the end of which stood two large, solid doors, modern and not quite in keeping with the others around the hall. He reckoned that the two on his left led to rooms inside the square tower while the one on his right, almost underneath the stairs, led through to the thin, round tower. The floor was tiled in traditional black-and-white tiles – clean, but chipped and cracked here and there – the flowers on the heavy, antique table which stood as a centrepiece before him were faded plastic. The décor, the smell – Will felt he’d like to throw open a window, give the place a lick of fresh paint and some brighter wall hangings. It was like the home of any other elderly person who lived alone, he reckoned. Musty and in need of a little care but then again, not only was the owner old, the structure was, too.
Will glanced around for Gabriel and frow
ned that there was still no sign. He stepped a little to his left to better see down the straight passageway toward the back of the castle, peering into the gloom. He couldn’t make out much but didn’t have to stare for long because a muffled flushing noise nearby indicated a presence and Gabriel emerged, wringing his hands, from a door on the right-hand side of the passage.
“Oh, I needed that!” he observed, and wiped his hands on his coat before shivering. “Is it just me or is it absolutely bloody freezing in here?”
He joined Will in the hall and they stood, peering back down the corridor and up the stairs.
“Shop!” Gabriel called loudly, and pulled his scarf up to his nose to show exactly how cold he was.
They turned sharply as the first door into the square tower opened, the first to the left of the main entrance, and saw a man emerge. He was of medium height, medium build and with a full head of brown hair, tinged with grey over the ears.
“Mr McKenzie!” he said in greeting, his voice distinct and clear, his Scottish accent faint.
He strode across the hall toward where they were standing.
“Gifford! The very man!” Gabriel exclaimed joyfully and they shook hands firmly. “This is Will Peterson.” Gabriel stood back to allow Will and Gifford to shake hands.
The exchange complete, the three of them stood in an awkward circle, unsure who should be the first to speak.
“Did you enjoy your drive up here?” Gifford asked.
“It was lovely –” began Will, only to be interrupted by Gabriel.
“I wouldn’t have called our mode of transport ‘enjoyable’!” he sneered, taking a sidelong glance at Will. “But the countryside is just as stirring as ever. Is my godfather round?”
Gifford shook his head. “He’s not, Mr McKenzie. In fact he’s away for the night – he said he had some business to attend to in Edinburgh, ironically, at head office. None of the guests come for the Christmas party the night before any more, so he took the opportunity to go to the meeting – truth be told, I think he overlooked the fact that you were arriving today.”
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